Why I like art that I do not like

This entry's obligatory image (which has nothing to do with its title) was cut from the junk ads, and I did not manipulate it at all. The only reason I'm sharing it is that it was saved on my computer in a folder labeled "trip tick" which I suppose is funspeak for "triptych" since the folder contained two other images that I've already shared with previous entries. (Those sibling pics exist hither and yon.) The aspect of these three images that binds them is the broad letters that span the top of each canvas. The thing that I like about this present painting is that it has... well just look at it:

Dear diary,

Why do I like art that I do not like? Because it’s easy to like art that I like; even the publicans do that. The challenge is to fix upon an artwork that does not appeal to me and say “Hmm, how can I like this unlikable thing?”

But if you succeed in liking the previously unliked artwork, then you don’t truly like the art that you don’t like; you’re right back to liking art that you DO like now — so what’s your point? Are you trying to say that at least this way your affection is not too cheaply and easily arrived at?

No. I don’t know what I’m saying.

Maybe you’re saying that you don’t like the unliked artwork after all, and you’re only lying about your conversion.

But I think that’s not true: I think I really do like this piece of art that I don’t like. And I stand by my statement: I don’t know what I’m saying.

Well it sounds like an interesting subject, and you seem to have mastered it.

“I think you should write a book on your theory. It’s a very interesting subject, and you seem to master it.”

—Officer Sunshine’s wife, to Officer Duke; from the film Wrong Cops (2013)

The trick is not to let your own taste enslave you. It’s an idea I take from Duchamp, who said:

I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.

But why can’t one just settle down in oneself and accept one’s own proclivities, go with the flow? Why must one always be wrestling oneself into submission? It’s hard work, and tedious. I’m beginning to lean toward the notion of letting oneself win the autofight.

I hate that idea — so you’re convincing me. Yes, it would be easy in a good way, to let oneself simply take over the reins of one’s soul.

Then King Agrippa said unto Saint Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me...” (Acts 26:28)

Isn’t that funny tho, that we speak about our soul as having reins? I almost even said “will” instead of “soul”, above, but I stopped myself, on reflecting: But the will IS the rein-holder. (Implying that a drive cannot be driven.) Yet now I wonder: might not the will have reins as well? Maybe something’s driving the will, like the will drives the soul, like the soul drives the flesh, like the flesh drives oligarchs to drive humanity’s chariot off the cliff. Also: Who is the speaker, and who is the self, when one says in one’s mind: I shall let myself win this autofight? (I assume we’re lifting the prefix “auto-” here from the Greek term “autos”, meaning “self”; as in “autoerotic”.)

I can’t speak for my “self”, but I assumed it was God who deigns verbally to concede the autofight. Like when Jacob fights the LORD to a standstill, and then the LORD cheats and tries to give up, but Jacob will not let him.

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, “Let me go, for the day breaketh.” And he said, “I will not let thee go.”

And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have fought God face to face, and emerged victorious.

(Genesis 32:24-30)

But this takes place in the real world, outside of Jacob’s mind. When we were talking just now about the autofight, I presumed that the event was something necessarily private and subjective. Plus, the God within oneself decides voluntarily to allow oneself to have control over one’s own doom — why not? everything’s spinning out of control anyway — whereas Jacob’s God tries hard to win but can’t; he even grasps “the hollow of Jacob’s thigh” as an illegal wrestling move, in order to escape before the sun rises on their struggle (vampires intensely dislike sunshine — they cannot find anything about it that is likable; and they will not change their mind); and Jacob prevails against this creep by way of raw strength. This doesn’t sound like an internal struggle. — On a side note, what exactly does that mean: “he touched the hollow of his thigh”? Is that a euphemism for something sexual? It almost sounds like God is grabbing Jacob’s privy organ, the way a blundering wrestler slinks out of a jam.

How I read it is that God tried to castrate Jacob, the same way that he threatened Moses, that time when Moses was staying at the inn with his wife Zipporah and their infant. Remember the story from Exodus? God shows up unannounced and basically takes Moses hostage and gives the family an ultimatum: “Here’s the deal,” sez God: “either I castrate Moses like I did to Jacob earlier, or you must do something equally horrific to your firstborn,” and he nods toward the poor little baby who is crying. And the LORD only lets his prophet go (reluctantly) after Zipporah (resentfully) appeases God’s bloodlust by circumcising their babe, using that stone that she found on the ground.

And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met Moses, and sought to castrate him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.” So God let Moses go. (Exodus 4:24-26)

Foreskin as wedding ring. How did we end up here? I thot we were gonna talk about unlikable art.

Well this scene is a good example of a piece of art that I like because I don’t like it.

Ah, I see. Now I kinda like it cuz I don’t like it either, too.

But that’s actually a bad example of what I mean, because the tale itself is actually likable: it’s poetic; only the moral aspect is repulsive. I really would rather find a way to talk about the thrill that comes from yielding to art that’s genuinely non-likable — I mean a masterpiece that’s unattractive, all the way thru.

I can’t even imagine anything like that. Everything I’ve ever seen in art galleries, and in magazines, or even on the walls in houses I’ve purchased, I’ve truly enjoyed. Maybe I’m cursed with being some sort of “good art magnet”; like I have the Midas touch, except I don’t need to make physical contact with anything — the geniusness of everything haunts me like a miasma.

Or it could be that you just have bad taste.

That’s true. I could have bad taste. I just might not be noticing the unattractive qualities that pervade our environment. I have a type of love-sickness, meaning that love infuses me and takes over my body like a disease, and everything I see seems passably passable: as if Cupid shot me, but, instead of just becoming infatuated with the 1st soul I lock eyes with, I keep adding crushes & secret admirations to my never-ending Lover List.

O dirt, you corpse, I reckon you are good manure—but that I do not smell—
I smell your beautiful white roses—
I kiss your leafy lips—I slide my hands for the brown melons of your breasts.

[—from Walt Whitman’s notebooks]

I lay awake all night, each night, composing love letters to all, and I propose marriage to every living thing — even unholy, non-living things like clocks, and the wretched sun! I ask permission to wed them. And their parents grant it. Now we embark on our life of domestic bliss. We live happily ever after.

The wretched sun. That’s a perfect example of what we couldn’t find earlier: a thoroughly unlikable objet d’art, which I truly like because I do not like it.

I agree that it’s nice to ignore the part of one that recoils in horror…

No, not horror — if you feel horror, that’s something you should heed: I’m talking about dislike, which is comparatively milder. I’m only trying to strike a pose that might bring peace to this universe. I imagine many individuals turning upon their fellow countryfolk in wrath because they hate their countryfolk’s artworks. I suggest trying to…

But what if our fellow countryfolk’s artworks suck?

Wait. What do you mean by “suck”? Who defines what art “sucks” and what art “blows” (I’m using what I take is the antonym of that initial judgment)? Let’s get BEYOND SUCK & BLOW. For, all we’re required to do, upon finding ourselves born, is to let a certain amount of moments pass by, and then expire. Now we can expire in either agony or humiliation. I want neither. I prefer to die a dignified death.

And what would that be?

Well, say that an army is hastening in my direction, and I face them valiantly and begin to give a speech — my voice is loud, so they listen. I convert them; they become my friends, and we now make unlikable art together. The other armies of earth also dislike our artworks, but they overlook what they take to be our lack of refinement, and they give us good ratings in their newspapers. They employ a bevy of local art critics to review the new works of their own towns and the surrounding provinces...

CONCLUSION

Planet earth is like a room, and all the countries are like people. Say, cowboys, rather. So we’re all cowboys in one room — one saloon — and our various cultures are like paintings hanging on the wall. And atomic bombs are like semi-automatic firearms; and all anyone else possesses are swords, which are like regular explosives (cannons and whatnot). So there’s only one cowboy in this saloon who’s dared to fire his gun, and that’s the U.S.; and he fired it twice — I’m talking about the fact that the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, back in the ’40s...

But I don’t want to anger the person in the room who represents the U.S.A. My goal is simply to compliment the fellow’s work of art. He’s drawn a picture of a prostitute on a davenport.

“Very good,” I say. “What’s its title?”

“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” answers the U.S. representative.

“Ah, quite fitting. I really do like it.”